That's actually pretty amazing. The USA was rocking the pop culture world in the 80s with the Japanese, and anyone who plays Civilization in the most boring way possible knows it's easy to win a culture victory by 1990.

All photos were during the winter, most with drab or desaturated colors, to emphasize a feeling of cold desolation. I'm sure you could cherry-pick some winter street scenes in neighborhoods of Chicago or NYC and give the same impression.

This feels like a pretty skewed series of images; it all looks cold and bleak. I really wish they had included a few photos taken in the summer. I'm sure there must be a few photos out there of people looking warm and happy.

Ernest T Bass:All photos were during the winter, most with drab or desaturated colors, to emphasize a feeling of cold desolation. I'm sure you could cherry-pick some winter street scenes in neighborhoods of Chicago or NYC and give the same impression.

Ernest T Bass:All photos were during the winter, most with drab or desaturated colors, to emphasize a feeling of cold desolation. I'm sure you could cherry-pick some winter street scenes in neighborhoods of Chicago or NYC and give the same impression.

Full color did not get to the area until the fall of the Soviet Union.

Just came in to recommend the Martin Cruz Smith Arkady Renko crime novels. (Some aren't in Russia, but all are variations on a man in Hell) The novels emphasize the lurid and depressing aspects of Russian life -- the gangsters, the grey crumbling buildings, the corrupt officials -- but in our brief 2 days in St. Petersburg what we saw looks like Smith got the details right.

Sass-O-Rev:This feels like a pretty skewed series of images; it all looks cold and bleak. I really wish they had included a few photos taken in the summer. I'm sure there must be a few photos out there of people looking warm and happy.

And yet, strangely, the people in America seem excited to be rushing headlong into this fantastic lifestyle. Yay - we'll just give more to the government and they can handle our health care ! And our food ! And our housing ! Whee - it will be so fantastic !

/ Living in Detroit, where it's been 55 straight years of liberal Democrat "leadership", I can tell you a lot of those pictures look very familiar. Except Russia is a bit cleaner and better maintained.

Copenhagen and Stockholm were more beautiful than any city in America by a large margin. The small German city of Rostok was comparable to the nicest cities in America c. 1980. (Despite it having been under the commie yoke for nearly 50 years.) Talinn was clean and starting to get moving. Gdansk looked like New Jersey. St. Petersburg was a slum,

The horrifying thing is that we're moving in the direction of Gdansk and St. Petersburg and it should be easy to move toward Copenhagen and Stockholm. But no. We're stupid, venal, and crazy.

Russia really needs to get their shiat in gear. I'm fed up of seeing their lazy writing with half finished characters, or in some instances not even facing the right way. If they want to be taken seriously they should at least learn to write properly.

Sass-O-Rev:This feels like a pretty skewed series of images; it all looks cold and bleak. I really wish they had included a few photos taken in the summer. I'm sure there must be a few photos out there of people looking warm and happy.

Ernest T Bass:All photos were during the winter, most with drab or desaturated colors, to emphasize a feeling of cold desolation. I'm sure you could cherry-pick some winter street scenes in neighborhoods of Chicago or NYC and give the same impression.

All were taken in Russia, and if the desaturated colours are the only things you see in these photographs, then it's a safe bet that you're the sort of person who was no help whatsoever in winning the cold war.

Copenhagen and Stockholm were more beautiful than any city in America by a large margin. The small German city of Rostok was comparable to the nicest cities in America c. 1980. (Despite it having been under the commie yoke for nearly 50 years.) Talinn was clean and starting to get moving. Gdansk looked like New Jersey. St. Petersburg was a slum,

The horrifying thing is that we're moving in the direction of Gdansk and St. Petersburg and it should be easy to move toward Copenhagen and Stockholm. But no. We're stupid, venal, and crazy.

I assume you're in Russia? If so, you do have some of the hottest girls on the planet there. So there's that

GUM department store was rather drab in those days. This was taken in 1985. People in Moscow dressed well enough but the shoes were crap. I used to make thousands of Rubles bringing in tennis shoes and blue jeans.

During May Day the propaganda banners would come out. This is near the Arbat in May 1989. The Arbat was a shopping street and the hot black market area. I made some great deals there.

Oranges were rare and I can remember standing in lines for them yet sometimes the quality was incredible. You always had an opportunities bag with you. The best moment I had in Moscow was trying to assemble a tomato salad. When I found tomatoes I purchased 2 kilos and bargained one kilo away for the rest of the ingredients. Vinegar was stolen from a hotel.

Lenin's tomb. The door was always left open and we always thought he was going to walk out. Lenin looked bad when I saw him. No chance he was coming back.

GUM at night on May Day 1989. Red Square was great at night. We would get fully intoxicated so that we could share in the "Socialist Perspective." That was a local joke on understanding Socialism.

Copenhagen and Stockholm were more beautiful than any city in America by a large margin. The small German city of Rostok was comparable to the nicest cities in America c. 1980. (Despite it having been under the commie yoke for nearly 50 years.) Talinn was clean and starting to get moving. Gdansk looked like New Jersey. St. Petersburg was a slum,

The horrifying thing is that we're moving in the direction of Gdansk and St. Petersburg and it should be easy to move toward Copenhagen and Stockholm. But no. We're stupid, venal, and crazy.

volodya:[farm3.staticflickr.com image 500x362]GUM department store was rather drab in those days. This was taken in 1985. People in Moscow dressed well enough but the shoes were crap. I used to make thousands of Rubles bringing in tennis shoes and blue jeans.

[farm3.staticflickr.com image 500x278]During May Day the propaganda banners would come out. This is near the Arbat in May 1989. The Arbat was a shopping street and the hot black market area. I made some great deals there.[farm4.staticflickr.com image 500x327]

Oranges were rare and I can remember standing in lines for them yet sometimes the quality was incredible. You always had an opportunities bag with you. The best moment I had in Moscow was trying to assemble a tomato salad. When I found tomatoes I purchased 2 kilos and bargained one kilo away for the rest of the ingredients. Vinegar was stolen from a hotel.

[farm4.staticflickr.com image 500x337]

Lenin's tomb. The door was always left open and we always thought he was going to walk out. Lenin looked bad when I saw him. No chance he was coming back.

[farm3.staticflickr.com image 500x323]

GUM at night on May Day 1989. Red Square was great at night. We would get fully intoxicated so that we could share in the "Socialist Perspective." That was a local joke on understanding Socialism.

You ever wonder if the USSR would have fared differently if the West had traded with them without the sanctions, embargoes and extreme tariffs?

My cousin's wife got out of Poland in the 70's. When they got married in the early 80's her mother got a visa to come the the wedding. The mother broke down the first time she saw an American supermarket, not only did we have coffee without a long line we had a choice of coffees.

Yeah the pictures were taken in winter and most northern cities don't look their best but this shows how run down things are.

Abe Vigoda's Ghost:Ernest T Bass: All photos were during the winter, most with drab or desaturated colors, to emphasize a feeling of cold desolation. I'm sure you could cherry-pick some winter street scenes in neighborhoods of Chicago or NYC and give the same impression.

Full color did not get to the area until the fall of the Soviet Union.

I can only imagine the country as looking like old news reels with factories belching black smoke and old babuschkas shuffling along until a stuka strafes them

InterruptingQuirk:volodya: [farm3.staticflickr.com image 500x362]GUM department store was rather drab in those days. This was taken in 1985. People in Moscow dressed well enough but the shoes were crap. I used to make thousands of Rubles bringing in tennis shoes and blue jeans.

[farm3.staticflickr.com image 500x278]During May Day the propaganda banners would come out. This is near the Arbat in May 1989. The Arbat was a shopping street and the hot black market area. I made some great deals there.[farm4.staticflickr.com image 500x327]

Oranges were rare and I can remember standing in lines for them yet sometimes the quality was incredible. You always had an opportunities bag with you. The best moment I had in Moscow was trying to assemble a tomato salad. When I found tomatoes I purchased 2 kilos and bargained one kilo away for the rest of the ingredients. Vinegar was stolen from a hotel.

[farm4.staticflickr.com image 500x337]

Lenin's tomb. The door was always left open and we always thought he was going to walk out. Lenin looked bad when I saw him. No chance he was coming back.

[farm3.staticflickr.com image 500x323]

GUM at night on May Day 1989. Red Square was great at night. We would get fully intoxicated so that we could share in the "Socialist Perspective." That was a local joke on understanding Socialism.

You ever wonder if the USSR would have fared differently if the West had traded with them without the sanctions, embargoes and extreme tariffs?

Coming in here to say that as someone who visited Moscow twice in the late 80s those photos don't capture the city or its spirit at all. Not get me wrong, there's a definite odd feel to the city (city blocks are insanely long and the streets are huge and wide) and parts of it are drab but lots of the architecture is mind blowing and there's a shiat ton of places that are gorgeous. I thought it was a great place to experience though I wouldn't want to live there but I've thought that about most cities I've visited outside of North America/Europe.

Also, the stores I went into almost always had fruit (though oranges did seem rare) and not just the d-coupon stores which were amazingly stocked, the actual stores that the Soviets used. Sure they'd line up for it but you generally lined up for everything else, it's just how they got by. I was always impressed that stores would often have an abacus beside the cash register. I also thought it was great buying ice cream in the blistering cold and standing outside and eating it while lining up to go into a hockey game.

Those picture are cherry picked to make it look awful. I'd love to go back and see how it's changed.

letrole:Ernest T Bass: All photos were during the winter, most with drab or desaturated colors, to emphasize a feeling of cold desolation. I'm sure you could cherry-pick some winter street scenes in neighborhoods of Chicago or NYC and give the same impression.

All were taken in Russia, and if the desaturated colours are the only things you see in these photographs, then it's a safe bet that you're the sort of person who was no help whatsoever in winning the cold war.

spawn73:letrole: Ernest T Bass: All photos were during the winter, most with drab or desaturated colors, to emphasize a feeling of cold desolation. I'm sure you could cherry-pick some winter street scenes in neighborhoods of Chicago or NYC and give the same impression.

All were taken in Russia, and if the desaturated colours are the only things you see in these photographs, then it's a safe bet that you're the sort of person who was no help whatsoever in winning the cold war.